Catching my balance.

Randomness

30 November 2012

I have had a plague of doppelgangers. For years, going back to when I lived in New York and everyone thought I was someone named Zoe. Then there are the phone doppelgangers. There are alumni doppelgangers. I have my army of dingbat doppelgangers, who never seem to learn. And they still don't. I get orders for work from a clothing company. I have been thanked for helping out on Staten Island with post-Sandy clean up. I get notices for my season tickets for the Vancouver Canucks. All of my South African friends send me articles about my new Johannesburg neighborhood. The spa in Austin keeps wanting to confirm my facial on Tuesday. A farm in Alabama sent me a notice that my check was ready for pick up.

Yeah.

But all of these have been related to my name. Which is pretty common. Today, I got a new doppelganger. Instead of going to my name-related email address, these came into my other email address. It's a Cambodian word. I set up the email account when I was in grad school, working on Cambodian art history. I've had it for more than a decade. This morning, my Cambodian word email address joined facebook. And sent friend requests to every. single. person. in. Cambodia. And they are ALL confirming. My inbox is completely full of messages from facebook telling me that Samnang and Bun and Srey Na and Chandra and a million other people have confirmed our friendship. So far I haven't seen anyone *I* know. But at the current rate of friending it's only a matter of time.

01 January 2011

Or the year. Shooting something, in any case. Mr. P and I watched a movie at home (Bride with the White Hair, because nothing says Happy New Year like a crazy Hong Kong kung fu movie) and then read til we fell asleep (because we are party animals like that). We had no real plans to ring in the new year. But then neither did our neighbors. Instead, as they do each year, the people of Richmond shot in the new year.

A premature ejaculator somewhere in the next subdivision woke us a little early, but we were definitely awake at midnight when people for miles in every direction emptied whatever firearm(s) they had into the air (one hopes). Someone on the street behind us emptied three different caliber weapons, one he was so excited about he reloaded and emptied it again. There were a couple of firecrackers thrown in for good measure, but the vast majority of the noisemaking was coming from guns. This happens here every year (and also happened the year I was living on a completely different side of Richmond before we got the house, so it is a pan-Richmond thing, not just our 'hood), although I tend to forget how bad it is until it's happening, at which point I start analyzing the safety aspects of our situation, coming to the conclusion each year that our chosen place for New Years-- asleep in bed-- is the best one, as the bed is lower than the window and any stray rounds would hit the side of the house, which is brick. Each year, Mr. P wakes up saying that New Year's here gives him flashbacks to Baghdad the night Saddam's sons were killed, as these two events are celebrated in similar ways. And each year the police are nowhere to be found (or perhaps they are outside the station, which is less than a mile from the house, shooting up in the air, yelling, "watch this one, Bobby!").

Now, living in New York during the denuement of the crack epidemic I heard my share of gunfire. And I heard it sometimes in Phnom Penh when I lived there. But, while in the individual instances it was surprising, it wasn't surprising, if you know what I mean. As in, not expecting it at that moment as opposed to not expecting it ever. But this is where we live:

This is our front yard looking out onto the street. This is the definition of suburbia. Ranch houses on large lots with trees in the yard and geraniums along the walkways in the spring. This is the kind of place one n-e-v-e-r expects to hear small arms fire.

But Richmond is special that way. This morning Mr. P and I discussed it, as we do each year, and he noted having recently seen a road sign in a built up area in Richmond shot up. Something like this:

Except that this picture was taken in North Dakota on our roadtrip over the summer, quite literally in the middle of nowhere, in a state that only has about sixteen people living in it. Shooting up road signs, an activity that is, as Mr. P says, ignorant and potentially dangerous (though one assumes that in super flat ND you probably can see for quite a ways whether or not anyone is coming), is something I've only ever thought of as a rural activity. But in Richmond, it is practiced in town, exemplary of this place's special congruance of country and city ignorance, nestled neatly in the suburbs, where nothing says happy new year like twenty-seven live rounds shot into the sky while standing in the azaleas.

25 December 2010

06 November 2010

A few weeks ago I was driving somewhere for work, I think out in the Western part of the state, and heard a clip on npr, like an ad, for Radiolab. Now, I love Radiolab in general, but I often don't quite manage to hear Radiolab. But this clip made me want to hear the show, enough that I tracked down their website, and lo and behold, they have podcasts of the shows. Yeay! But, despite a significant chunk of time poking around, listening to this and that, reading descriptions, putting keywords into their search engine, I could.not.find. the show I'd heard the clip from. So I signed up for their RSS feed. And *pop*. Last week the show I'd been looking for appeared.

The bit I heard is the bit with the physicists saying that it is the size of a city that matters, that the size of the city alone gives them enough information to predict a whole bunch of random things about it. There are some serious limitations to this. And there is a certain amount of pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat showmanship that annoyed the hell out of me when reading Freakanomics (though they do not then try to leap to invalid conclusions, which was the next, infuriating step in Freakanomics). Still. I must admit to being kind of wonderfully astonished in listening to this strange web. It is an approach to the city, as a construct, as a creature, as a being, that is both wonderfully, mathematically ordered, and also wholly, viscerally organic.

12 September 2010

Mr. P's opening was Saturday night, and things went pretty well. He gave an artist talk and there were quite a few people there with lots of questions and interest in the process, the project, and the work.

Two pieces sold at the opening-- my favorite piece, and his favorite, so how do you like them apples? But I like the whole show, so there's more to see, love, and buy, people!

We got to see loooots of friends, which was awesome. I so miss my DC crew, and so many of them were out for the show-- it's great to see them, and great to have their support.Got to have dinner with Anita and Bink and Dr. Scientist and Lea&B, and so many others who came-- yeay! Also got to see friends from a bit further afield-- down from Annapolis with the toddler that I've never met, which was great. And my parents who drove all the way down from Massachusetts! So nice of them to come. And we got to stay with our awesome friends Rebecca and Eric and have a super yummy breakfast before the drive back.... so good to see everybody.

On the way back we stopped in Thornburg so Phil could get something to drink. In the quickmart or whatever at the gas station just off the highway I saw this display:

30 July 2010

Today I was notified that the university in Scotland where the English one has applied for a job has received her application with a schedule of when interviews will be held. I hope they give her a follow up call.

Last week I got a price list for party platters of food for the American one. Guess she's having a party. If I have to deal with the caterer the least she could do it invite me.

I have a friend who has suggested that I should raise an army of Jenn F.s. But really, I'm not sure how effective a dingy bunch of broads who can't remember their email addys would be.

21 June 2010

I have an email address that includes my name. I don't use it much-- there are others I use more often-- but I set it up with the idea that one with just my name would be a useful professional thing to have. A couple of years ago I started to get weird things sent to that address. From myself, like. Or my alter ego. Another me in another place. Someone with my name. I would get emails sent to me, to my name, from my friends who weren't my friends. Apparently I was living in LA. And was contemplating buying a condo, because there was a real estate agent that was sending me listings all the time. A while ago I moved to the East Coast, where I occassionally get things asking me to complete a task for work. In a field I know nothing about. And I am constantly being told by the manager of the building where I live to come pick up the UPS package that is waiting for me in the mailroom. Can I tell you how weird it is to get things addressed to you that aren't to you? It was easier to dismiss these things when they were coming from LA. But they are now coming from a place where I used to live, and it kinda freaks me out when the yoga place I used to go to emails me about their new specials. Except that I moved out of that city back before the email provider receiving the emails existed, so it really can't be for me. Just for my name.

I've tried emailing people to say, uhm, wrong address. But it hasn't helped. Worse, a couple months ago I developed a new alter ego. This one is in another country. Now I get notes from a whole new set of friends-- even relatives-- employers, pottery barn, co-workers, a grant-making organization.... demanding things from a whole new field that I know nothing about.

Are people with my name so flighty that they can't remember their own email address correctly? This week Jenn-in-another-country got a picture she took with her phone in her inbox. My inbox. The inbox. Sent from herself. She can't even remember her email addy correctly to tell herself.

04 April 2010

We just watched the final episode of The Prisoner. While we have been game for the whole thing, weird as it has been...this is just a big bowl of WTF? Maybe it would be better if one ate 'shrooms? Dropped acid? Something?